My 2015 Reading Challenge

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My 2015 Reading Challenge

As of January 1, 2015 I gave myself a reading challenge for the year. I planned to read 25 books between January 1^st and the stroke of midnight on December 31^st. Now I am a self-proclaimed bookworm, reading, books they’re my favorite pastime. My favorite activity when I have nothing else to do. So twenty-five books that probably doesn’t sound like a lot in theory my challenge should be somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty or one hundred; several of my Goodreads friends challenged themselves with a number that far surpasses mine.

There are a few reasons why I didn’t give myself a higher goal, why I didn’t push myself to complete a greater challenge. First and foremost, life; as any bookworm knows as much as we’d all love to sit around all day engrossed in whatever novel currently has our attention every once and a while the novel must close for a little bit. There are other responsibilities that need to be attended to on a daily basis and not all of them can be done with one’s nose buried in a book. Look I love that sometimes when things are truly slow in my office I can spend a few minutes reading, but that doesn’t mean I get to shirk my actual job responsibilities just because an incredible plot twist demands my full attention! So as difficult as it is I must admit to being a grown up and focusing my attention on other tasks for a while and return to my book later.

And you know what? Some days, as much as I love reading, as much as it relaxes me and offers an escape, sometimes a nap just sounds a whole lot better!

Okay, so life has not gotten in the way and I can read whenever I want! (If only) I still want a variety of the novels that I read. Sure there’s nothing wrong with a little fluff every now and then, a book so easy I barely need to turn my brain on to understand the content but if that’s all I read I’d be bored out of my mind! I like something that will challenge me and makes me think, something that requires my full and undivided attention lest I miss a minute detail pivotal to the entire plot. I want the books with complicated characters with layers that I have to dissect to understand. Laini Taylor’s Days of Blood and Starlight took me almost three weeks to read because I took my time with it, gave it the attention it so rightfully deserved and required. But before I became engrossed in the Taylor’s world and followed Karou on her journey between our world and elsewhere I read a piece of fluff about a girl who thought it was the end of the world because she was a twenty-one year old virgin. (Spoiler Alert: she lived, there are worse things in life than being a virgin … imagine that!)

Of course with variety you get a hit and a miss, for example City of Heavenly Fire; probably one of my biggest disappointments on my challenge list. Took me over a month to finish it because I was lacking the motivation to continue with another page. I am no quitter though and continued on as if I were actually interested in the outcome. So I had the good, the bad, the in between and I did not give up on a single one of them. I finished every book I started during my challenge period.

I fell behind schedule and read furiously to catch up, only to end up ahead of schedule at some point by four whole books! So I set myself a twenty-five book challenge because I felt twenty-five was an appropriate number in which I could enjoy what I was reading. I didn’t feel I needed to sacrifice anything just for the sake of completing my challenge. Each book I read brought something new for me to enjoy, despise, pick apart and think about long after I had closed the final cover. I allowed myself to suffer from more than one book hangover in the last year and I enjoyed every minute of them (as horrible as they seemed at the time).

Twenty-five books! Next year I think I’ll my sights a little higher, not much, but maybe a little. Who knows what 2016 will bring for me?

xoxo

Think Before You Review ...

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
- Ernest Hemingway

Honestly no truer words were ever spoken about a writer. Especially for a writer that is offering up their hard work to someone else to essentially read, critique and rip to shreds. I'm an unpublished author and I desperately want to join the ranks of those that are published. But I know that when that day comes, if I put my work out there in the world, I will of course be subject to the same reviews that all my favorite authors are subject too.
I've read some of these reviews, on apps such as Goodreads, websites like Amazon and B&N, seen posts on Tumblr and Facebook. While some reviews have merit and come from a genuine place of critique and objectivity a large majority of them make my blood boil.
For instance completely writing off any series, story, or author because the two characters you 'ship' don't end up together is an opinion that is uniquely your own. Now while others may share your sentiments and agree with your opinion, it is not however a justified review of a book. Or perhaps the author threw in a plot twist to up the ante and make the story more exciting and interesting to the reader. Honestly those plot twists are fun to write, you keep thinking to yourself 'no one will see this coming'. If you didn't like the plot twist, well too bad, it's there for a reason and it serves a larger purpose to the story.
Moving on to characters, for anyone that is not a writer and simply enjoys the thrill of reading and a new book characters are probably some of the most difficult aspects to control when writing. Characters soon become their own person and sometimes, as hard as you try, you have no control over them. They take on a life of their own and sometimes they tell you, the writer, where they want to go next and what's going to happen. Trust me it is just as much a shock to the writer as it is the reader. But that being said the author has a plan for their characters, they each serve a specific purpose to the overall storyline, whether it's to be a martyr, to be a love interest, or to just get the ball rolling for the main character. They all serve a purpose!
Now there are many other review aspects that I can go into but it seems to me the trend of these so called 'reviewers' is to complain when the characters don't do what the reader wants. "Shippers" really make my blood boil because for some reason it seems to be a thing now if the main characters of any story don't end up in love, in lust or in bed together before the end of the book. I don't seem justifying the hatred of a book or story because 'so and so' didn't end up with 'what's her face', if that's the case and how you want to base your opinion stick to Disney movies; they always have a happy ending.